Orion and the Dark

• Directed by Sean Charmatz (Feature Directorial Debut)
• February 2, 2024 (US)
• Netflix
• Based on the children’s book Orion and the Dark by Emma Yarlett

Voice Cast

• Orion-Jacob Tremblay
• Adult Orion-Colin Hanks
• Dark-Paul Walter Hauser
• Sweet Dreams-Angela Bassett
• Light-Ike Barinholtz
• Sleep-Natasia Demetriou
• Unexplained Noises, Debbie-Golda Rosheuvel
• Insomnia-Nat Faxon
• Quiet-Aparna Nancherla
• Orion’s Mom-Carla Gugino
• Orion’s Dad-Matt Dellapina
• Hypatia-Mia Akemi Brown
• Adult Hypatia-Shannon Chan-Kent
• Sally-Shino Nakamichi
• Adult Sally-Ren Hanami
• Richie Panichi-Jack Fisher
• Tycho-Nick Kishiyama
• Narrator-Werner Herzog

A boy faces his fears on a journey through the night with a creature named Dark.

Without prompting, I kept seeing mentions/ads/YouTube suggestions pop up on social media for Orion and the Dark. I guess paid online advertising like that works because I did watch it though after viewing I was left a bit underwhelmed. The idea is solid but the execution fumbles. Let’s start with our central (?) character of Orion.

A child with fears is fine. A child with so many fears they should be institutionalized is another. Orion is like the detective character of Adrian Monk but on steroids. They go on ad nauseum covering his list of fears. It starts out a bit comical, but the more the montage goes on the more it just makes Orion pathetic. Not even funny pathetic but he is a sad sack.

While I went into this thinking its focus would be about Orion overcoming or learning to control his fears but it quickly loses that focus by occurring in three different time periods. The story begins with Orion as a little boy trying to handle his fears of the dark. Then it moves to Orion talking to his daughter Hypatia and that this is him telling her a story to help her overcome her fears of the dark and ends in the distant future with Orion’s grandson telling a bedtime story to Hypatia and she helping him tell it. Cute but it kind of makes you ask what’s the point of the story? Is it about Orion overcoming fear? Is it about Hypatia overcoming her fear of the dark? Is it a fanciful story told to a kid to get them to go to bed? Or is it about Orion’s daughter telling Orion’s grandson a fanciful story all to let us know that Orion was able to control his fear long enough to speak to his crush and make some babies?

Or is the movie about the personification of darkness called Dark finding his confidence? Is it about the group of other nightly things understanding that they work as a team and serve an important function? Is the movie about understanding that daylight and dark and all the others are equally important? It becomes about so many different things.

Even if it was ultimately a bedtime story of any period this could’ve been a rather entertaining story using fantasy elements to help a child grow beyond a particular fear or set of fears. Instead it becomes muddled with all these different timelines. You cannot become invested in any one story,

I do think this will be entertaining for kids. There are bright colors and vivid visuals. It’s just nice to look at. And I do think adults will like it for the same reasons, but when you start thinking about the story begins to fall apart a little which is unfortunate. With no firm main character it becomes entertaining yet forgettable. 

Orion and the Dark is an okay movie that fails largely because it has no focus. It doesn’t know who it wants to be about and achieves entertaining. Nothing you will want to watch again or think about it a few days. I think if you are out of ideas this is an adequate option.